


Vicissitude

by FineTheCouchIsCoolToo



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Phase Four (Gorillaz), Phase One (Gorillaz)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 05:31:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11411244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FineTheCouchIsCoolToo/pseuds/FineTheCouchIsCoolToo
Summary: In the past twenty years, a lot has changed between 2D and Murdoc.





	Vicissitude

No mistake in the history of all mistakes has ever been as beneficial as this one. Certainly not, or at least, nothing else Murdoc Niccals would consider a bonafide success. All of the service hours that don’t involve watching over an unconscious teen boy are dull and endless, but reliving his youth ten hours a week through his imagination and the visual stimulation a nineteen year old boy in his backseat provides is an experience he will not soon forget. Not only the company of a mate who’ll let him talk about whatever he wants for hours on end, but the weight he’ll hold over this kid if he ever regains consciousness will guarantee a pretty frontman for his eventual band.  


He wraps an arm around the veggie boy, clinking glasses with the one in his pale hand. “Haha,” He chuckles to himself. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” He grins at the underaged boy and holds a finger to his lips before tossing back the glass.  


The boy’s head falls onto Murdoc’s shoulder and he clears his throat. “Are you going to drink that?” He asks, before switching the glasses and moving Stu’s head to rest against the brick wall they sit against. “Of course not, am I dense?”  


It has become sort of cathartic for Murdoc to pour out his problems to the comatose teen, and oftentimes he finds himself teary-eyed or even raspy in the voice as he goes over his childhood trauma a fourth or fifth time. He only hopes that all of the soap operas that proclaim people who have been in comas remember everything that’s been said or done to them are lying.  


With a nervous bout of laughter, he drops the glass to the ground- ignoring the shatter that sounds- and hoists the boy above his shoulder, holding him by the waist and wincing each time Stu-Pot’s forehead smacks against his behind. At this point in his life, he’s better at driving while he’s intoxicated than while sober, so he has absolutely no qualms over hauling the unconscious boy into the passenger side of his newly fixed-up Vauxhall Astra and buckling him up. He learned quickly that having a boy that passes quite well as a nephew of sorts passed out in his passenger seat looks much less perverted than having him sprawled out in the backseat. At least, during the busier parts of the day. When he’s not stuck in traffic and using his sentence as an excuse to use the carpool lane, Stuart is tossed in his backseat without much of a second glance. Unconscious bodies are best for pillow talk and looking less lonely, not for added responsibility- if the boy ever wakes up, Murdoc doubts he’ll be without an impressive amount of memory loss and poor mental faculties.  


Driving back to the hospital is always the least fun part of his ten hour adventures. It reminds him that not only is the kid he’s taking care of actually lifeless and his entire personality is only a manifestation of what he needs, but also that he has less fun service to deal with immediately after.  


“You know,” He says to the empty air in the car. “I’m actually starting to hope that you wake up sometime.” He burps, and, in hopes that his social workers can’t tell he’s been drinking, smells it. “We’re going to make a great band, I swear it.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Also, you’re incredibly difficult to take care of. I’m surprised I haven’t made you bleed yet. Externally.”  


He gets no response, and he doesn’t expect one. Still, he clears his throat as if there’s an uncomfortable reason as to why he’s the only one talking. “Yeah.” He lets the silence linger and rot and doesn’t touch it until they get to the hospital.  


Now, with teeth bared and painted fingernails digging into calloused palms, he cannot believe he’d ever found solace in the company of someone so dense and meek.  


“Are you fucking serious?” He wrenches his nails from his own palm and scratches his forehead. “I can’t paint them if you keep picking at it before it’s dry.”  


Stuart’s hands shake as he freezes in his position. “I’m sorry,” He moans, the wrinkles in his own forehead deepening as he looks at the paint that covers his fingertips and cakes the space between nail and skin. “It just feels really weird and I don’t like it.”  


Murdoc sighs, whipping his head back to growl and shake his head. “Clearly I don’t have to do it if you don’t like it,” He drops 2D’s wrist, leaning back on the bare mattress they sit on.  


“No!” Stuart’s eyes widen. “It feels weird but I like the way it looks when it’s finished. I won’t pick at it, please?”  


Murdoc bites his lip. All of his hopes for a punk rockstar had been fulfilled in phase one, with a pretty boy doing everything he’d said for fame, but he’d forgotten that 2D is still technically a person, and had been a young one, at that. As he’d grown up he’d just become a projection of all of the force and abuse Murdoc put him through instead of what all of that force and abuse was striving for. “Fine.” He barks, dipping the small brush into the pink bottle. He would have been more than happy to do this for 2D if it weren’t such a chore.  


Stuart huffs with relief, sticking his hand back out. “Thank you.” He smiles softly, frightened of making any sudden movements lest he gets paint to the face.  


Murdoc closes the pink bottle and hands 2D a rag covered in nail polish remover. “Clean yourself up first.”  


Murdoc had always been aware of 2D’s meek and sensitive side, from the eel incident to every time he got a little too cuddly after a few drinks, but recently it has been making more of an appearance. He personally despises it, and sees it as a desperate attempt to hold onto some sense of youth as Stuart gets closer to forty, but with his own difficulties with aging and his undeniable part in whatever brain damage has led to this childlike nature, he can’t complain much.  


“Murdoc,”  


Murdoc looks at him, and the colourful rag in his clean hands.  


“You’re staring at me.”  


“Yeah,” He blinks a couple of times and grabs 2D’s hand, opening the paint bottle again and starting on his pinkie. “I was.”  


He would assume that after knowing a guy for twenty years, he’d be able to tell if this more intense personality is genuine or not.  


“Okay,” Stuart looks down at his hands, following Murdoc’s gaze.  


“Do you want to get a drink after this?” He asks, his eyes not moving from the meticulous work he’s doing on 2D’s nails.  


Stuart perks up, smiling with less hesitation than the last time. “Yeah!” He clears his throat. “I mean, yeah, mate.”  


Murdoc smirks and nods. “Alright.” Regardless of whether it’s with a rockstar or a forty year old softie, he’s just glad he has someone he can drink with who will actually respond.


End file.
